Born Hard Again: Book Three of the Future Remembered Chronicles (13 page)

"Sweet, thanks, P!  You muh main man!"

I frowned as I ushered Alphonso out of the closet and closed the door behind me.  It had been hard to walk on my dick toes at first, but it was much more difficult to move on ankle-nubs.  Nonetheless, I found the will to stumble forward one limp at a time.  Limping wasn't easy.

The once-perfect-looking store was now completely destroyed.  Yvonne's dead hump of a form was lying on the red-smeared floor roughly half-way up the aisle I had sent her down.  Pieces of the security guards were wedged under her steel-reinforced tires.  Junior was still sitting on his disability scooter, but collapsed forward on top of himself in a lifeless heap.  Marcus was not going to be pleased when he found out Yvonne and Junior were dead.  I needed to find a way to blame this on Alphonso.

Blood and bullet-holes were everywhere and ruptured food bags on the store shelves had vomited their contents onto the scene with indifference.  There were no more soldier-types in sight.  The exterior of the entrance to the store was still bathed in spotlight, though, making me think that we were likely still besieged.  There was no need to face whatever was outside of the building yet; at least not before Marcus was more fully recovered.

"Preston," Alphonso said quietly.  "What're you going to tell him about Yvonne and Juni-"

He stopped mid-sentence as the lights in the building dimmed in a manner that gave me the impression that something was putting a heavy draw on the power system.  I knew what that something was: Koochy.  The dimming of the lights coincided with the sound of something large and industrial winding down under protest.  The lights stayed very low for what felt like minutes. 

Koochy must need a lot of power, I thought to myself as I marveled at his capability.  I mean, the man was about to recover his corpse, which had been dead for who knows how long now.   

"Do you think we should go back and check on him?" Alphonso asked.

I shook my head.  "No, he can take care of himself.  We need to keep watch out here," I told him.

As if on cue, the sound of a tinny, horrendous, tortured screaming came from Koochy's closet behind us.  It quickly rose in volume and intensity and, as it reached its peak, all of the power in the store went out.

"
AHhhhhhHHHHHHHRHHHRHRHGGGhHHHAAAA!
" came Koochy's primeval roar as I heard the closet door thrown open in the pitch black surrounding me.  "AHhhhhHH!  Ooohhhhh!  Unnnnghhh!"

"Marcus!  Marcus, is that you?" I called out to the darkness.  The sound of something staggering around in the debris littering the store floor echoed back at me in response.

"Unnnghh.... P?" I was overjoyed to hear Koochy's voice with real depth of bass, not through a compute-pad's piezoelectric speaker.  "Dat you, P?  You dere?  Ohhh... muh thuckin' head."

Stumbling over an obstacle blindly, I cursed.  "Fuck!  I can't see anything, Koochy.  Where are you?"

"Ohhhh...." more moaning from Marcus.  "Shit ain't right, mane.  I ain't right.  I feel... thiick...
BLARGH!" 
I heard retching in the inky darkness.

"Ew," Alphonso commented.  Since I couldn't see him, I had forgotten he was next to me.

Just then, a tremendous explosion consumed the front of the building.  We were knocked to the ground by the force the blast.  Luckily, a toppled display of junk food broke my fall.

"Thit!  Dey comin' fo' uhh-
BLARGHH!
" Koochy began to talk again, but again was interrupted by vomiting.

The darkness that had covered us was now dispelled by the fires that were raging.  Thick smoke billowed around me, making my eyes water and causing me to cough.

"Marcus!"  I gasped as I saw my friend in the flickering firelight.

He was indeed reanimated.  His skin clearly had some life in it now, and was twitching and swelling all over his face.  His jaw was still unhinged-looking and his tongue was grossly enlarged and weeping pus.

"Come... come on, mane, uhhh," he staggered towards the other corner of the back of the building.

Alphonso and I followed him and soon we reached the far wall, which supported an iron ladder that had been painted to match the pale yellow of the store's interior.  We climbed through the hanging ceiling and onto the roof.

The night sky was peppered with countless brilliant stars.  Flames tore at the side of the building that was farthest away from us, sending a shaft of black smoke high above us.  It was easier to see Koochy now that we were outside.

I cringed.

"Uh, Marcus," I nudged him.

"Wha... what, P?" Marcus drooled.  I was amazed his body had already recovered to the point of producing bodily fluids.

"You... you don't look so good," I didn't know how to tell him.

Koochy started to laugh, which appeared to pain him greatly. 

"Theel like thit, thon," he said with much effort.  "Needa thind my ath... a betta thurgi-pod.  Cova my thace an' thit."  He swayed back and forth frailly as he spoke.  I realized that he may have been more of an asset when he was dead and the suit was responsible for his movements.  He didn't look ready to take on any kind of challenge at the moment.

He looked at my third arm and the bloodshot whites of his eyes grew big.

"Thit, P!  Dat thit ith thucked up, yo," Koochy recoiled in disgust.

"Come on, let's go check out who's out front trying to kill us," I changed the subject and jaunted my naked ass off to the other side of the roof top.

Immediately it was clear to me that this was not the work of any local Old Cleveland militia.  A small GMS warship was parked on the snow a short distance from the burning store we stood atop.  Four or five soldiers stood in front of the warplane, bearing arms.

My heart leapt.  I could rescue TK with that kind of firepower!  I hadn't thought about TK in some time now, and I was too frightened of what I might get in response to a telepathic outreach.  The woman had a healing factor.  No matter what was happening to her at this very moment, it would eventually be okay, right?

"Koochy, how are we going to get in that ship?" I asked.

"Ooh!  I know!" Alphonso blurted.

"Hey, wait a minute!" Koochy shouted surprisingly coherently.  "Where tha hell 'vonne 'n' Junior be?!"

"Uh oh," I grimaced and snapped my head to Alphonso, who did the same thing.

"Uh..." Alphonso procrastinated.

"Awww, nah!" Koochy slowly turned his gaze to the fire that blazed furiously beneath us.  "We left dem down dere?  Naw!  Thay it ain't tho, P!"

"They were... they were killed.  By the soldiers," I explained.  Maybe less was more in this case.

"NOOOOOO!" screamed Koochy, his swollen tongue flailing.  "Thuck that thit!  My thamillllyyyyy!"

I gestured helplessly.

"Koochy, I know what you're going through," I commiserated.  "Preston Jr., uh, he died when I took over his body, and I miss him dearly."

"Ay, you don't know thit, P!" Koochy retorted.  "Yo' thorry assth thon wasn't nobody.  Thunior was my boy, he be my boy!"

I restrained from yelling back and countering his criticism of my son, since that might seem like I was just being defensive about myself.  Besides, Marcus was going through a lot right now.  I imagined what Junior might have grown up to be.

His future life was clear to me: the newer and larger mobility scooters he'd grow up into, casting aside the smaller ones like an invertebrate molting a shell.  Junior's first heart attack, his elementary school graduation ceremony in a few decades, him falling in love with another land whale, Marcus giving Junior's hand away in marriage and riding on his armrest as they scooted down the aisle, Junior's heartfelt "Bluuuhhh!" in response...  I wiped away a tear.

He was cut down all too soon.  And his beautiful life exchanged for what?  A few minutes of delay?  And shielding a hairy midget-god from a few bullets?

After this contemplation I stood up straighter and puffed out my chest proudly, knowing that it was worth it.

"Put that thit away, thuck, mane!" Koochy batted away my dick-arm.

Alphonso walked up to Koochy.  "Here.  You should have this," he said, presenting Koochy with a blood-stained compute-pad.  "She would have wanted you to have it."

I was amazed.  When Alphonso and I were in the shopping aisle of carnage and the power had been knocked out, while I was fumbling in the dark, Alphonso must have unclipped Yvonne's compute-pad from behind her snack packs!  He was more sensitive and emotional than I'd thought.  I considered his near-breakdown over his scraped knee, then figured it all lined up.

"Beta as fuck," I muttered.

"What?" Alphonso said.  "Anyway, Koochy...  you know she liked to record herself so she wouldn't have to take the effort to talk.  Well I know it's not like a digital personal assistant or anything, but it's a little part of her, and now you can have her talk whenever you want.  It's like she's still here, her and Junior."

Alphonso pressed a button on the compute-pad and Yvonne's face filled the screen.  "Ahh!"  I jumped back reflexively.

"Junior," her recorded image advised, "this is how you eat a pizza.  You need to add organic sugar on top of it, because aspartame and those diet sweeteners aren't healthy."  Wheezing and coughing ensued with Yvonne's effort to pour the sugar on top.  "Look, so now it's good for you.  Big and beautiful people need to keep they're energy up so their not tired."

I twitched.  "Their!  They're!" I cried out.

Alphonso looked confused and then smiled comfortingly.  "There there, Koochy, let it all out.  It's okay."  Koochy carefully pocketed the bloody compute-pad.

"Thankth, mane," Koochy mourned.  "theeing her meanth tho much, it'th my only thamily."  He paused to try to wipe some drool from his lolling tongue.  "THUCK!  Thuck this!"

Marcus yanked at his swollen face-protrusions and pulled some necrotic pieces off.  "That's better, mane.  Thit."

"We need to get you a new surgipod," I observed.  I peered out over the suburbs, looking for inspiration in the soon-to-be early morning light and the glow from the fires we'd started everywhere.  "There, look!  A hospital!"

"Preston, I don't know if that's a good idea," Alphonso began.  "We just went to a shopping mall and look what happened."  He pointed at the storefront just as it collapsed in a heap of twisted metal and puff of plaster dust.  "Who knows what the Good Man would bring to bear if we went to a facility like that?"

"Damn, thon.  Yo' assth ain't no thtrategic masthter!  Mo' like masthterbathter!" Koochy mocked.

"Maybe he's right," I admitted.  "There are only..." I counted, "five guards down by that GMS dropship.  You remember that other one we rode in?  It had a mil-spec surgipod, right?  And GMS troopers get shot in the face all the time?"

Alphonso nodded.

"Le'th do thith!" Koochy exclaimed.

The troopers out front had the ship's high-power spotlight focused on the collapsing storefront and their guns were trained on the exit doors, however they hadn't spotted us on the roof.  We needed a plan.

I took inventory of our staff and materials.  The first step in developing a minimally viable plan was assessing capabilities.  Partially reanimated guy, useless guy, god with dick-arm and foot-nubs, some future sensing skills, a couple heavy-duty scooters with attached fleshy bullet sponge masses, a store full of food and various sundries, three knocked-out soldier types with their assault rifles, some snack packs, a couple compute-pads...

"Damn it!" I said.  "Why is this so hard!  Argh!  I need a visionary, someone with a long-term strategy!"

Koochy pulled out Yvonne's compute-pad and pressed play.

"Sometimes I think, what if this was my last day on earth?" Yvonne's recording blathered.  I took note though since we were in quite a bind too.  My interest was piqued.  Could Yvonne actually have a single redeeming quality?  Could she get us out of this situation?  "Then I think to myself," the raspy voice continued, "could I die, just knowing that I didn't eat that last cupcake?  That there was something I could have eaten and I didn't?  No, I will never live that way.  I will live every day like it could of been my last."

"Fuck," I said.

"Hey guys, there are three Good Man goons down there still knocked out," Alphonso advised.

"Unnnghth, they got dick-thlapped!" Koochy added.

"Why don't we put on those soldiers' uniforms and take their guns, and then get onto that ship?" Alphonso continued.  "It's so crazy, it just might work!"

I considered this.  Well, I guess it wasn't any worse than my other minimally viable plans, of which I hadn't thought of any yet.  "Fine, Alphonso," I declared.  "But I just want to go on record that I am not fully in support of this plan, but I don't disagree with it."

"What?" Alphonso replied.  "Okay I'll go grab the guns and stuff, you guys stay here."

I was impressed with Alphonso.  What was responsible for this stunning transformation from abject failure to potentially, not-quite abject failure? 

"O-okay," I approved his suggestion despite my surprise.  His face lit up.

"Awesome!  Okay, guys, I'll be right back," he jogged out of our sight, back towards the roof-top hatch we had ascended through.